Comments on: Embed virtual worlds anywhere

By: Raph

Raph — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:50:59 +0000

Thanks for the feedback! The Flash download is in fact an older, common one, at this point. (9.0.124 I believe). The Flash download opening in the embed area sounds like a bug to address.

We’re not yet ready to enable guest support, but the point is well-taken.

By: TickledBlue

TickledBlue — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:59:00 +0000

Nice, but has a couple of usability issues. The login popup, as already mentioned, is really offputting and you’ll lose a lot of users right there. Unless the surrounding website has additional explanation there is nothing that really gives the user any incentive to click and login or create a profile. Where is the added value to encourage login? I realise that this is up to the site owner to a certain extent but do you allow the site to place their own content intead of the generic Metaplace initial view? Also displaying the Metaplace info in the embed, is OK but could be offputting to some sites who may see a conflict in branding.

I’d suggest allowing a generic “guest” login that automatically loads on page load that shows what the ‘world’ is doing right now. Then you can leave it up to the creator to provide incentive to the user to create their own profile. This would also get around that nasty problem of people who are behind restrictive firewalls not knowing this is an issue until “after” they have logged in or registered. The attempt by the automatic guest login failing could be gracefully detected and a dumbed down flash embed or something that at least doesn’t require odd ports be open could be substituted without the viewer being aware of it.

I also found that if the user has the gall of not having the latest flash version installed it lets you know inside the embedded area and if you click on the link provided in the embedded section, it loads the Adobe installer page – once again – within the embed window area. This has the unfortunate effect of ensuring that the ‘download and install’ button on the Adobe flash page is below the horizon/fold of the embedded area and you can’t scroll down to it (at least on a mac using Firefox). Then, once you’ve installed Flash and restarted your browser, and reloaded the page, you need to refresh the page several times to get it to stop displaying the Adobe page in the embed. That’s a lot of work for an average user – there are a lot of points during that that they will just give up and go elsewhere.

I’d suggest ensuring that any links to external websites open in a new window/tab. I’d also try to limit the version of Flash needed to a recent but common, so as few users as possible need to upgrade just to use metaplace – as that will be another point of failure for a percentage of them.

By: RPG, Virtual Worlds and Guybrush Returns « Martin Bilello

RPG, Virtual Worlds and Guybrush Returns « Martin Bilello — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:03:38 +0000

[...] haven’t spend too much time yet, but on a newsletter I received was the announcement that you can embed your virtual world from Metaplace in any webpage, including of course your blog, so if I get a little time to make something productive with it [...]

By: Wikidot Convention 2010: Alternatives

Wikidot Convention 2010: Alternatives — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:40:06 +0000

[...] http://www.raphkoster.com/2009/06/30/embed-virtual-worlds-anywhere/ [...]

By: Metaplace: worlds embedded : The Metaverse Journal – Australia’s Virtual World News Service

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:03:45 +0000

[...] Koster has announced the ability to embed a Metaplace world within a webpage. Significant? Indeed it is. One of the [...]

By: West Karana » Daily Blogroll 7/1 – MMO Overload edition

West Karana » Daily Blogroll 7/1 – MMO Overload edition — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:58:07 +0000

[...] an amazing Steampunk world embedded right in the middle of a blog post. Very cool. Raph Koster has more info and the full press release on his blog, as [...]

By: Amaranthar

Amaranthar — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:25:09 +0000

Congrats, Raph and team. Metaplace has a very bright future.

By: WorldIV.com » Metaplace Virtual Worlds and Remote Embedding

WorldIV.com » Metaplace Virtual Worlds and Remote Embedding — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:24:10 +0000

[...] posted on Raph’s blog today, Metaplace has officially released support for remote embedding of worlds. Embedding a [...]

By: Charles Ellis

Charles Ellis — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:07:09 +0000

Awesome work Raph (and everyone on the Metaplace team)! It’s great to see how much progress has been made in just the last year.

By: links for 2009-06-30 | Metaverse3d.com

links for 2009-06-30 | Metaverse3d.com — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:09:28 +0000

[...] Raph’s Website » Embed virtual worlds anywhere (tags: metaplace) [...]